cut all the ropes
by distorted innocence
Summary: We were never here staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer; suckle on the hope in light brassieres. \ Collection of drabble-ish AUs.
1. falling down all around

_"Tell me now that you'll never leave. Always stay here with me."_

_—Stay Awhile, Ryan Star_

* * *

Kristen's seventeen, and college is a dream, not a reality.

She works at a bar day and night, loaning herself out whenever she needs to. Sometimes, when she's half-listening to the breathing of the person beside her, she knows she's gone from _you have to make good grades _to _you have to pretend you like it when he's inside you. _It's disgusting and unfair, and all she wants is college, but she knows life isn't fair.

* * *

Kemp's eighteen, and he tends to get in the wrong crowd.

This is how he finds himself sitting at a polished table, splattering the gleaming surface with white powder. A girl—_the _girl, he'll learn later—swipes a rag over the alcohol he's spilled, a mess of shards dotting the floor. His companion, a nameless guy he can't even remember befriending, laughs and fishes a few dollar bills out of his wallet. "You want her?" the guy asks. "I'll pay."

He never remembers saying yes in the haze of smoke and whiskey.

* * *

Somehow, they end up in a bed in the back of the bar together, and he's telling himself he can't help it if he enjoys touching her. She plasters on a porcelain smile that manages to fool him, and he thinks that her breasts have to be the most beautiful thing in the world. He shoves a drink into her hand, thinking she's already wasted, but she's not. She pushes his hand away.

"Why not?"

"It's wrong," she says. She's in this job for the money, but drinking for no reason except enjoying it doesn't make her any better than the person beside her, running his hand through her hair and flicking his tongue around her mouth.

Later, when he's had enough drinks he can't even see her and has convinced himself she looks like some sort of supermodel, she traces the veins showing on his pale arm. She explains her dreams, how she _has _to go to college and her parents will probably disown her if she doesn't. She wants to learn, she wants to be beautiful and rich and _better._

She tells this to every man who has climbed into this bed, as long as they're so drunk and high they can't tell what she's saying. She would never give a piece of herself away like that under normal circumstances.

"I think you deserve that," and his words are slurred but he's definitely listening and she screams because she doesn't want this man to know her. Her hands fly to her ears, pressing hard so maybe, maybe she can crush her skull. Maybe she can damage her brain enough to believe this never happened.

"Hey—hey, it's okay," he says, pulling her back down and wow, she really is pretty. "I don't want to own you or anything—" He tries to grab her flailing arm when she knocks over a tray of empty glasses, and then she's crying because surely someone will hear the crash of glass and she'll get fired. "Kristen. I promise it's okay."

Later, she'll look back with a cringe and realize he's the first person of all those men that knows her name. But right now, she's sobbing and she needs comfort, but _it will not _be from this man. _I'm not you, I'm not yours—_she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to get out of bed, but he grips her wrist. It's not strong, just loose enough for her to tear herself away if she wants to, but she hesitates.

"Stay," he pleads. "Stay a while."

"Why?" she snaps, her blood turning to ice. "You just want to bang a chick. It's not like you care about me."

_I do. I do. I love your dreaming and your determination and your sacrifice and it's something I'll never have. Please, please stay._

She slams the door on her way out.

* * *

He wakes up three hours later in his own apartment, a note from his "friend" on the coffee table. Cigarette ash specks the floor. He has a monster of a hangover, but nothing has changed from before.


	2. stay this simple

_"To you, everything's funny—you've got nothing to regret. I'd give all I have, honey, if you could stay like that."_

_—Never Grow Up, Taylor Swift_

* * *

It's generally known that Merri-Lee Marvil is a celebrity, and she knows what that means. It means flashing lights and faked smiles, false perky voices and gossip circulating at the speed of sound. She's thankful that she's just the host of a talk show, something that comes naturally, and involves more dishing the gossip than receiving it. Sometimes the things she talks about are actually _serious, _not about how who broke up with who, or who cheated on who, because otherwise her hair would be in clumps on her carpet and she'd snap her vocal cords.

She knows all of one person who doesn't know what _celebrity _means, and that's her daughter.

* * *

Dylan crawls into bed, a teddy bear tucked under her arm as her mother turns on her favorite night light. It's a kaleidoscope of soft, blurry colors shifting back and forth, casting shadows on the wall, and her mother reads her a fairy tale.

"Mama," her daughter says, looking up at her when she finishes. "Fairy tales don't really exist, do they?"

She almost chokes and wonders when her daughter became disillusioned. "Of course they do."

And then she almost starts crying when Dylan grins and nods. "I knew it. They said fairy tales are lies, but you wouldn't lie." She hugs her mother before falling back onto the bed, her eyelids fluttering shut, and Merri-Lee can't help but feel shaken.

* * *

She loves her daughter more than anything else in the world, but unfortunately, like all people, Dylan grows up. Somewhere along the line, she swaps teddy bears for makeup and friendship necklaces for pearls, and one day, she comes home complaining that someone didn't know who her mother was.

It's with each passing day that Merri-Lee grows more bitter toward the world, and somewhere along the line, she stops loving her daughter. She can't love a creature who sees Hollywood as some sort of paradise—she's walking straight into Hell.

* * *

One day, she receives a message in the voicemail and assumes it's from a reporter. She deletes it.

The next day, another message comes from the same person. It's titled _your daughter's autopsy._

* * *

She stands with shaking hands under her umbrella at her daughter's funeral. _Her daughter. _Revulsion worms its way down her throat and comes back up in a puddle of vomit as everyone listens to the preacher's monotonous speech about how much everyone's going to miss Dylan.

_Why didn't I see the signs? _she asks herself once she's back in her apartment, a sob hitching in her throat. She flings open the door of Dylan's bedroom and finds nothing but size zero jeans and a photo of a smiling girl with arms and legs as thin as sticks.

_This is a girl who's grown up,_ she thinks, and she collapses onto the bed and cries.


	3. it's breaking over me

_This is OOC, because I'm pretty sure that Olivia and Alicia don't have mental illness in canon. Also may do a sequel to this, if anyone wants one._

* * *

_"I'm slipping underneath—so cold and so sweet."_

_—Never Let Me Go, Florence and the Machine_

* * *

_Trust me._

She is a Siren who can lead people underwater with these words.

In modern society, people aren't known for their intelligence. If you're a hormonal boy and a beautiful, charismatic girl kisses you and asks to come with her, chances are you will. It's not like she's going to try to kill you or anything, right?

By the time she's officially diagnosed with psychopathy, she's killed four people. Her parents balk at the idea of sending her to an institution—it's disgraceful to send their pretty, perfect daughter to a _mental hospital_—but she has to go.

For this, she spits in their faces on the way out.

* * *

"Why'd you do it?" the girl next to her asks. Waves of blonde hair fall gently down her back as she stares dully into the mirror, but the question is tinged with curiosity. As far as Alicia can tell, she's perfectly normal; no random screams, no evidence of hallucinations, not even an attempt to escape from the straitjacket she's in.

Alicia remembers to answer the question and shrugs. "It's kind of fascinating, I guess." She laughs humorlessly as she says, "The therapist didn't think the same thing."

The blonde glances at her, and Alicia notices the scars weaving their way across her arms, dotted with freckles. "You got a therapist?" She coughs for a moment, and the dark-haired girl is pretty sure she sees blood splattered across the jacket, but she can't find herself to care. "My parents never bothered."

Alicia raises an eyebrow, almost appreciating the fact her parents cared enough, but then remembers she doesn't care about them. "What're you in here for?"

"Bipolar disorder," the blonde says, shrugging. Her legs swing back and forth like a child's, even though it seems odd, because they're long enough she has to lift them up so they don't touch the ground. "You?"

"Four gravestones," she says in a cheerful, almost sing-song voice. It's meant to be morbid humor, but the blonde nods and accepts it. She can't help but feel a twinge of annoyance. "So, what's your name?"

"Olivia. You?"

"Alicia."

* * *

One day, she's casually walking around her cell, counting the number of stickers pasted on the wall. She's not sure why they're there in the first place, and no one else has them, but no one seems to care. Despite her condition, she's been labeled as low risk—she hasn't shown signs of self-harm, and she's not physically dangerous.

Sobbing echoes through the hallways, and her eyes widen before she slams herself against the bars of her door.

* * *

"You know," she says conversationally as the blonde girl sobs on and on, clawing at her straitjacket, "you almost got me in trouble. They thought I was trying to escape, but I was the one who alerted them to something being wrong."

Really, she's trying to hold herself together as more scars form on Olivia's arms, and she pretends she isn't scared out of her mind when the girl attacks the attendant with her teeth and knocks herself unconscious banging on the door with her head. All of the deaths Alicia has caused are bloodless, drowning or poison or suffocation, and the sight of the blonde's head bleeding is a little too much for her to handle.

But she's a psychopath, so she's not supposed to care, and everyone assumes she's not disturbed.

* * *

"You have no idea what it feels like."

As far as the uncaring staff of the hospital knows, a _psychopath _is the best person to play therapist for a girl set on tearing herself to pieces. She pretends she isn't staring at the other girl's belly while she paces around.

"You don't _know,_" Olivia insists. "You don't know what it's like to completely hate yourself, to hate everything." She points at her face, almost poking herself in the eye. "Did you know I tried to stab my nose once and had to get a new one? I almost killed my brother in a temper tantrum. And the hospital bracelets. . ." She hiccups. "They thought I wanted to slit my wrists, but I just wanted to get them off." Her voice rises higher. "And then _he _comes with his stupid grin and it's _disgusting_ how I'm helpless to do anything in this straitjacketand now I'm freaking _pregnant!"_

Alicia just raises an eyebrow and asks if she really cares about proper language in an asylum.

"Do you feel anything?" Olivia shrills. "I thought you might! I thought you might _care!_"

She wonders why the staring (female because the last male to come in almost got his eyes clawed out) attendant isn't doing anything. Her eyes are wandering back and forth, and really, what is this, a soap opera?

"You were the only person in here who was nice to me!"

Really, she wasn't, she thinks, she just asked a few questions. Her gaze is casual, uncaring, and Olivia snaps.

* * *

"I hope you're okay," says the attendant (insincerely), applying disinfectant to the scratch marks on Alicia's perfect face. Honestly, if they want her to never trick a boy again, they should just leave a really big scar. "The poor thing's going to off herself any day now—"

"Thanks," she interrupts. "But could you leave? I'm a little bit shaken; I need some alone time."

There's no such thing as alone time here, with the security cameras, but she's never needed guards. _Low risk, _she reminds herself. The attendant nods, having better things to do, and is gone.

Alicia sinks to her knees, pressing herself against the walls, and screams until the pain of her lungs makes tears come to her eyes. It's not that she cares; it's that she wants to.

_The closest thing you have to a friend was raped and they haven't even fired the attendant who did it. Why can't you feel anything? _Why can't you feel anything?

* * *

Olivia dies in childbirth. The baby is raised in Alicia's cell.


End file.
